Abstract |
This article presents a research which examines the impact of religion, gender, and parental socioeconomic status on school attendance in Nigeria. Researchers found that both gender and parental socioeconomic status have significant impacts on school attendance. Although gender is an important determinant of school attendance, indicators of household socioeconomic status--household wealth and mother's and father's education--are more important. Studies from a number of nations have found that large differences in the school enrollment rates of rural and urban children, with the disadvantage falling disproportionately on rural children. In addition, consistent with findings from earlier research, children from Christian households are much more likely to be attending school than Muslim children, and the influence of religion on school attendance is second in important only to household wealth. (Contains 1 table and 30 footnotes.) |